Wednesday, January 14, 2009

More than 1,000 Gazan deaths later...

I decided to have a look at that United Nations Human Rights Council resolution on Gaza--the one that only "Canada"* opposed--to see what the resolution actually said, who voted for it, and who abstained.

Somehow the news reports haven't conveyed very much solid information, so we have been forced to fall back on images and stereotypes. The big bad UNHRC, full of human-rights-loving nations like China. Poor, struggling Israel. Canada's principled stand.

So here is the unedited text of the resolution. It's "unbalanced," all right, a bit like the current respective death counts--13 Israeli fatalities so far, four of them self-inflicted, vs. more than 1,000 Gazans. It calls, in essence, for the immediate cessation of the on-going carnage.

Who voted for it? We all know that countries like China and Saudi Arabia did. That's been well reported. But India did, too. And Chile. And Brazil. And Mexico.

And who abstained? Countries like France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Switzerland, and the UK. Not very brave of them, certainly, but at least they didn't vote for the slaughter option.

___________*I'll forego the shudder-quotes for the rest of this post, but the UN representative of the Harper government did not speak for me, nor, I suspect, for many, let alone most, Canadians. Harper's "Canada" is not my Canada.